League of Legends

[Ashe]

So replays make or break a game being an e-sport? I was under the impression that its status as a viable e-sport was based on the number and quality of tournaments being held on a regular basis, not this specific feature or that specific feature. Counterstrike does not have replays, or didn't the last time I checked anyway. Does this mean CS is no longer a viable candidate for MLG? RTS games are really the only games I've known to actively keep up with replays until recently.

Regarding "use that money to hire people to do this instead of that", its not that they are scrounging money and not hiring people. Go look at their jobs page. They are regularly hiring people for nearly every type of position, primarily server and coding positions, but also creative for various things. They are always telling people they are hiring. This doesn't mean they aren't going to have certain standards while hiring (letting every applicant get the job) but they aren't being cheap either. Last I heard, from both Riot employees and from people who have applied (talking on IRC), they actually pay rather competitively to acquire people.

TreeEskimo just got offered an internship after going out to LA for his interview. I believe Roku has also gotten started in getting a job there. That guy who got in trouble with Blizzard for making that "World of Starcraft" mmo project on his own that was actually fairly developed for a one man project? He got an email from Pendragon offering him a job because "I think you're awesome". I believe he turned them down only because he was later counter offered a job by Blizzard itself, but I haven't kept up with it.

So don't let someone convince you that they are just "not using that money to hire people for other things and only care about pumping out characters", because nearly every argument about that is pretty far from the truth.